Category Archives: Business planning

Want to hear a fun story? I am going to share with you one of the worst moments I ever had in business… and tell you what I gained from it. In my first year of operating my first store, it was a whirlwind of excitement. Business was good, and I was insanely busy but…

Surely I’m joking, right? Business planning is an exercise in torture, designed to keep you bogged down, painstakingly researching your market and analyzing reams of data, before you write it all up in a formal document filled with mind-numbing jargon to impress lawyers and bankers. If that were all true, I’d never have gotten my…

Two fantastic books, two very divergent views. And I believe the key to massive success is to apply them both. Gerber’s approach has revolutionized many a business in the past couple of decades, encouraging entrepreneurs to think big, create businesses they can grow and scale easily. It’s the McDonald-ization effect, creating operations that provide adequate–not…

Why would any sane person give up a thriving business? If I had a nickel for every time I’d been asked this question, I’d have at least enough change to buy a few lattes… or one really good glass of celebratory wine. And trust me, I did a lot of celebrating when I sold a…

There’s been a major increase in the number of people creating their own businesses these days, as independent consultants, service providers, and online affiliate marketers, to name a few. This is fantastic news, because it means more people are taking control of their own destinies, and the Internet is making it easier than ever…

Does your business have a mission statement? Do you know what it is, right now, without looking it up? If so, I congratulate you. Very impressive! Truly, I don’t think most people could pass this test. Certainly, most employees would not be able to remember the mission statement of the companies they work for, and…

Let me make something clear. I work more than ten hours in a week. It often looks more like ten hours in a day. However, I invest an average of ten hours working on one of my businesses, and the return on that time is a fantastic income. This is not counting the time I…

If you aren’t using social media at all to promote your business, you’re missing a huge opportunity to get free promotion. Make it easy for people who like your business to tell their friends about it, and leverage the reach of the internet with the power of word-of-mouth advertising. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now…

When I say you need a marketing plan for your business, do you feel immediately overwhelmed? Or do you roll your eyes in disgust, imagining sleazy marketing executives trying to manipulate people to spend their hard-earned dollars on stuff they don’t need? I hear you. There are millions of examples of shady marketing tactics, and…

So many people are afraid to start a business because they’re terrified of managing people. I find it hard to relate, because that’s one of the things I love most about running a business! And I believe anyone can learn to hire awesome people, train them well, and make sure they love their jobs so…

So many people in our society seem hell-bent on doing everything themselves. No help needed, thank you very much. Maybe they think it’s more noble to go it alone, they feel like they can’t afford to hire anyone, or they feel weaker when someone else is lending a hand. I think this is a real…

This may strike you as a trick question. I mean, they’re the same thing, right? Well, to me there is a world of difference between them, and this is one thing you want to be clear about as soon as possible, because it can make a huge difference to your happiness and fulfilment. The crucial…

Teaming up with someone to build a business can be one of the biggest decisions you ever make. All too often, people enter partnerships with a hazy, idealistic vision (or worse, no vision at all) and simply choose their business partner based on friendship or financial need. Please remember this: no matter how big or…

Cash crunch. Tough times. Slow sales. So you do anything and everything you can think of to bring in more customers. But is that really going to solve the problem? Short term, sure. And I know it’s hard to think long term when you’re stressing out about paying the bills! There are some other factors…

Here it is: the scary stuff. Money. It’s what holds so many people back from pursuing their dreams, and that is so sad, because it may not be as difficult as you think. As I talk about in this episode of The New Entrepreneur, I didn’t have any money to invest when I started my…